“All the more because there will be a number of us to ride,” said Modeste, who was recovering the colors of health.

“The secretary did not say much,” remarked Madame Mignon.

“A little fool,” said Madame Latournelle; “the poet has an attentive word for everybody.  He thanked Monsieur Latournelle for his help in choosing the house; and said he must have taken counsel with a woman of good taste.  But the other looked as gloomy as a Spaniard, and kept his eyes fixed on Modeste as though he would like to swallow her whole.  If he had even looked at me I should have been afraid of him.”

“He had a pleasant voice,” said Madame Mignon.

“No doubt he came to Havre to inquire about the Mignons in the interests of his friend the poet,” said Modeste, looking furtively at her father.  “It was certainly he whom we saw in church.”

Madame Dumay and Monsieur and Madame Latournelle, accepted this as the natural explanation of Ernest’s journey.

CHAPTER XIX

OF WHICH THE AUTHOR THINKS A GOOD DEAL

“Do you know, Ernest,” cried Canalis, when they had driven a short distance from the house, “I don’t see any marriageable woman in society in Paris who compares with that adorable girl.”

“Ah, that ends it!” replied Ernest.  “She loves you, or she will love you if you desire it.  Your fame won half the battle.  Well, you may now have it all your own way.  You shall go there alone in future.  Modeste despises me; she is right to do so; and I don’t see any reason why I should condemn myself to see, to love, desire, and adore that which I can never possess.”

After a few consoling remarks, dashed with his own satisfaction at having made a new version of Caesar’s phrase, Canalis divulged a desire to break with the Duchesse de Chaulieu.  La Briere, totally unable to keep up the conversation, made the beauty of the night an excuse to be set down, and then rushed like one possessed to the seashore, where he stayed till past ten, in a half-demented state, walking hurriedly up and down, talking aloud in broken sentences, sometimes standing still or sitting down, without noticing the uneasiness of two custom-house officers who were on the watch.  After loving Modeste’s wit and intellect and her aggressive frankness, he now joined adoration of her beauty—­that is to say, love without reason, love inexplicable—­to all the other reasons which had drawn him ten days earlier, to the church in Havre.

He returned to the Chalet, where the Pyrenees hounds barked at him till he was forced to relinquish the pleasure of gazing at Modeste’s windows.  In love, such things are of no more account to the lover than the work which is covered by the last layer of color is to an artist; yet they make up the whole of love, just as the hidden toil is the whole of art.  Out of them arise the great painter and the true lover whom the woman and the public end, sometimes too late, by adoring.